August Screenings: Best & Worst
Total Films Screened in August: 53
Current 2023 Total: 556
Current All-Time Total: 8,540
Hello, and welcome to Cinema Wellman! The end of August means two things; the summer is coming to a close, and it’s time to recap the Best & Worst of the films screened here at Cinema Wellman during the month of August.
For the past three decades I have hated this part of the year since it meant my summertime off was over and I had to go back to school.
Now that I’m working, but not teaching, I don’t care about that at all. Bring on school!!! Go back to school everyone!!! It’s not a big deal!!! Stop complaining!!!
Now that that’s over, let’s begin where we usually do, and that’s at the bottom of the barrel.
The Snowman (2017)
R/119 minutes/IMDb: 5.1
If you’re a regular here, you’ve heard me say that one of the marks of a good film is if I’m still thinking about it days after screening it.
And if you’re a regular here, you’ve also heard me say that sometimes I forget a film the day AFTER I see it. Some movies make no mark, there’s nothing to take away as a positive, and that movie is forgotten almost immediately.
The Snowman is one of the latter.
There is one thing I’ll remember about The Snowman and that is the fact that it’s the movie that finally forced me to take notes during my screenings just in case the movie makes it to the end of the month list.
All I can recall about this movie is how much I hated it.
Here’s how IMDb described this forgettable mess; “Detective Harry Hole investigates the disappearance of a woman whose scarf is found wrapped around an ominous-looking snowman.”
The protagonist’s name is Harry Hole?! Seriously? Is that just a translation error from Swedish to English? Is that a joke?
This so-called “horror” film features snowmen who are less frightening than the snowmen Calvin used to build in the comic strip “Calvin and Hobbes.”
Hidden Strike (2023)
PG/102 minutes/IMDb: 5.3
Would you like to see a CGI semi-truck do a somersault in the air?
If you do, watch the trailer for Hidden Strike. The trailer, not the movie. If you just watch the trailer, you’ll save yourself about 100 minutes of misery.
I like Jackie Chan. I have no issue with John Cena. What I have no time for are garbage “Action/Comedy” movies (isn’t that redundant?) that are long on explosions and CGI and very short on anything close to resembling a script.
I was shocked at how boring a movie could be that features so much “action.” I guess one man’s action is another man’s oh god this movie is a piece of crap!
Now onto the very WORST movie we screened here at Cinema Wellman during the month of August, and it’s a shocker.
It’s not a shock that we watched it or that it’s being talked about during this episode.
The shock is that it’s on this side of the list and not the other.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the worst movie we screened here at Cinema Wellman during the month of August was…
John Wick: Chapter 4 (2023)
R/169 minutes/IMDb: 7.8
I don’t quite believe it either, but this was straight up terrible.
I’m a HUGE fan of the first installment of the series and I tolerated the second for the most part.
The third was unnecessary, which makes this 4th Chapter even more annoying.
The original John Wick was like catching lightning in a bottle. Nobody saw it coming and everyone was stunned by the quality of the choreographed fight scenes and overall stylized look of the entire movie. It was almost perfect.
You can’t match perfection (and don’t bring up The Godfather Part II, we’re not having that conversation right now), but you do try to capitalize on a surprise moneymaker, so there was a sequel. A sequel in which they should have killed our hero at the end.
John Wick is not a superhero, so don’t give him the qualities of a superhero. He can be a badass that kicks ass and kills almost everyone he meets, but he cannot fall off the roof of a five-story building, hit every fire escape on the way down, and live.
He. Can. Not.
Another reason this chapter steamed my clams so much is that it’s so damn long! Do you know how long 169 minutes is in hours? Do that math? The answer is way too many!
This was a 169-minute movie that actually seemed longer!
And the level of the cartoon violence in this one is preposterous. Some of this is “Tom and Jerry” stuff. I was expecting John Wick to hit someone in the face with a frying pan and have that person’s face take the form of the frying pan.
It’s that bad.
There’s a scene in which John Wick falls down about thirty or more stone steps multiple times. I was actually stunned by how stupid this movie got.
I watched this with Andrew, and we kept asking each other, “This is horseshit, right? It’s not just me?”
No, it wasn’t just me. How this rates a 7.8 on IMDb is way beyond me. That’s embarrassing!
I just did a Google search and found a list of every movie that has a 7.8 on IMDb, and there are some really GREAT movies on that list!
Do the Right Thing, The Verdict, Cabaret, Misery, Airplane!, The Magnificent Seven, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, and Goldfinger have the same rating as this cartoon.
I can’t recall a bigger recent disappointment in a movie. And I just read today that John Wick #5 is a go.
We are doomed. AI or not.
Enough of the junk, let’s take a look at some of the good stuff from August.
We’ll be getting into the Wayback Machine to start!
Shorts by George Melies
Four Troublesome Heads (1898)
The Hilarious Posters (1906)
The Infernal Cauldron (1903)
Whimsical Illusions (1909)
An Impossible Voyage (1904)
I realize this is kind of cheating, but Hannah always tells me that I can do whatever I want here in Cinema Wellman, so I’m doing just that and grouping these five films together.
In this case, these films are all shorts and the five of them add up to only a total of 38 minutes.
An Impossible Voyage is 24 minutes by itself, so the others are very short.
These films are all from the brilliant French film pioneer George Melies.
If you want to see what film looked like at its birth, watch anything made by Melies or the Lumiere Brothers.
It’s all pretty raw but look when these films were made! All of these shorts are whimsical, magical fun.
Yes, you can do most of these film tricks yourself on your iPhone, but Melies did it at the turn of the 20th century.
Without an iPhone.
Special thanks to HBO or HBO MAX or MAX or whatever it's calling itself these days. All of these are available to screen right now, making this magic available to everyone for the time being.
Evil Dead Rise (2023)
R/96 minutes/IMDb: 6.6
IMDb to start: “A twisted tale of two estranged sisters whose reunion is cut short by the rise of flesh-possessing demons, thrusting them into a primal battle for survival as they face the most nightmarish version of family imaginable.
The tagline on the poster reads, “Mommy Loves You to Death!” Yikes!
If you haven’t seen Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 make sure you do, but you don’t really have to see them to watch and enjoy Evil Dead Rise.
I’ve been watching a ton of horror movies lately and most have been duds. This movie caught me by surprise, and I was pretty freaked out by some of it.
I hate children in peril in movies (and in real life, for that matter), and when you add demon/monster possession which changes the child’s voice…I was hiding in the closet for that part.
This was great fun, a decent scare, and they used 1,720 gallons of fake blood to make it.
Bring a poncho.
Unemployees (2023)
NR/26 minutes/IMDb: 6.9
I was going to mention that this movie also took me by surprise, but I looked at the remainder of the list, and they ALL were pleasant surprises.
This darkly hysterical short comedy stars Kandy Kapelle and Dani Parker as Patty and Patti, two besties who are entering the workforce together.
The way they look at employment is funny, but it’s also a little terrifying. If you’re a member of one of the older generations that has no faith in these younger gens, this may seem like more of a horror movie to you.
The two young women have wonderful chemistry together and are totally believable as BFFs.
This short film is only 26 minutes long, and I’m not spoiling it at all since you’ll wonder how the hell you got there, but the film ends with a severed hand holding a flower on a stump.
Amazing.
They Cloned Tyrone (2023)
R/122 minutes/IMDb: 6.7
Netflix takes a lot of heat for some of the movies they produce, and I get it. Some of them are awful trash. BUT some of them are also very much worth seeing.
This comedy/mystery/sci-fi film is about (IMDb:) “a series of eerie events that thrusts an unlikely trio onto the trail of a nefarious government conspiracy in this pulpy mystery caper.”
Remember that “conspiracy theory” back in the 80s that the CIA was flooding poor urban areas with crack cocaine? That “conspiracy theory” was actually true, and hearing former government officials talk about it is scarier than some of the horror movies I’ve seen lately.
That’s one of the things that makes this edgy. Is this conspiracy impossible? Yes! I mean. It has to be, yet…
Keifer Sutherland plays a corrupt government official (named Nixon!), and he chews the scenery so much it had me fondly remembering everything that was “24” back in the day.
The trio attempting to uncover the conspiracy are played by Teyonah Parris, John Boyega, and Jamie Foxx. They’re excellent, especially when all three share the screen.
When the film reveals how this particular conspiracy is set in motion, it’s a doozy!
This was very different, creative, politically charged, and great fun.
Happiness for Beginners (2023)
PG/103 minutes/IMDb: 6.0
If you’re standing up right now, you may want to look for a place to sit.
I’ll let IMDb begin: “Helen signs up for a wilderness survival course, a year after getting divorced. She discovers through this experience that sometimes you have to get really lost in order to find yourself.”
Seems harmless, yes? Wondering why I asked you to sit down?
It’s the genre.
Happiness for Beginners is listed as a “comedy/drama/romance.”
IT’S A DAMN ROM-COM!!!! And I actually liked it! Not since Catch and Release (2006) have I actually watched, without hating, a romantic comedy.
And I’d watch this again. I said it!
It’s sweet, Helen (played by Ellie Kemper) is a protagonist worth rooting for, and the other campers on this excursion are excellent. Some of the characters are shallow at the start, but there is an attempt at some development along the way.
I found the young man running the program to be both annoying and funny, which is a fine line to teeter upon. He isn’t as one-dimensional as he appears at the start, which was refreshing.
The ending is telegraphed way early and will not surprise anyone, but that’s EVERY ROM-COM I’VE EVER SUFFERED THROUGH!
Now that I enjoyed Happiness for Beginners, I can continue to despise the rom com for another decade or so. That feels about right.
We have one film remaining, so that means it must be the BEST film screened here at Cinema Wellman during the month of August.
And it is…
Fear of a Black Hat (1993)
R/88 minutes/IMDb: 7.2
In 1984, I saw a movie that changed a lot of things for me “cinematically” (whatever that means).
This is Spinal Tap remains one of my favorite all-time films for a variety of reasons. The originality, the creativity, the music, the improvisation, it’s just wonderful.
I’ve been a “metalhead” since 7th grade, and when I first saw Spinal Tap, I recognized so many of my favorite bands in that fictional group.
And believe me, those bands saw themselves in Tap as well.
Nine years later, director Rusty Cundieff “tapped” into the world of rap and hip-hop for another mockumentary, Fear of a Black Hat.
IMDb: “A mockumentary chronicling the rise and fall of N.W.H., a not particularly talented, or particularly bright, but always controversial hip-hop group.”
Tone Def, Ice Cold, and Tasty Taste comprise N.W.H. (where the Attitude has been replaced by Hats).
I was going to wonder aloud about how I could have missed this, but I already know that answer. I am not the demographic. You may have heard me mention previously that demographics be damned!
Fear of a Black Hat is worth watching for many of the same reasons that make This is Spinal Tap worth watching.
I read that they almost shot a scene where N.W.H. was lost backstage at a show and they wandered across the skeletal remains of Spinal Tap.
That would have been so sweet!
It also has so much going on with so many bits being fired at you that you’re going to want to rewind and watch entire scenes again.
The music is also tremendous!
Embrace the black hat! And the hell with the demographics! And the patriarchy while we’re at it!
Well, that’s a wrap for the month of August and the summer!
Join us again next week when we revisit the world of Cult Movies!
Fifteen more cult movies for you to add to that list you know you started!
We hope you’ll join us for that. Until then, take care.
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